The Timeless Isle is a nice place. It's sunny. The flight path isn't too far. It showers players and their alts with gear. I was glad Chromie sent me there, as it got my newly-90 rogue into LFR much more quickly than waiting on LFG queues as DPS. My DK will be geared up in no time at all with all the plate drops I've gotten.

I like the rare mechanic. Everyone who gets a hit gets a hit. The only problems are ones that I wouldn't directly attribute to Blizzard, though perhaps they could help with. First, it makes me very sad when a rare dies when I'm a second away. That is why I try to just get my hit in and then wait it out, particularly if there aren't many people attacking yet. Second, I get annoyed by rare timer spam. I'd prefer if the addons used a separate channel.

Then there are the rep mobs. First off, Kilnmasters are ridiculous. Get hit and you die. For hunters this is a trivial matter, maybe because of the reduced AoE damage to pets. I can solo them, but to do so requires either perfect rhythm back and forth or spinning it in circles. The former is hard to keep up for the entire fight while the latter means that I'm causing random instant death to anyone nearby. I hate it when people bring their kilnmasters near others for this exact reason.

The bigger problem is with grouping. Since the loot is so generous it makes no sense at all to try to hoard it by taking your own kills. Rep is the same whether soloing or in a group, so grouping means that you have that much higher chance of being tagged on a kill, plus a much faster kill rate. If someone in the group is a hunter, well then everything is wonderful.

Yet people don't group up. Every person who is there for rep should be in a five-man group. To do otherwise is just stupid. Every time I am there I try to form groups. Sometimes I succeed. If I see more people, I try to bring them in too. If I could get rep in a raid I'd do that, once the daily elite kill is done, of course. Though even then, I suspect it would be worth missing out on the quest in exchange for having a tag and five-second kill time on every mob in sight.

I wonder if there is another mainstream title that has a solution to this. Not automatic grouping, but something like what Blizzard already does with the rares.

I think WoW should, in addition to the add-on API, have a web API like GW2. This would allow us to create web pages like gw2stuff which are much more useful to track such things as spawn/event timers then in game add-ons.

I've put in a suggestion using the in-game suggestion form that if Blizzard continues with that type of random mob spawn system going forward they NEED (not an option) an in-game UI element that will tell people when things are spawning, when they last died, when they spawn, etc.

I've considered the private channel thing for add-ons &/or reporting people who push the info into public channels as spammers but the problem is that not everyone runs (or would run) the add-on and we'd be back to the previous "When does Hulon" (does anyone ever spell Huolon correctly? I noticed you picked on that yourself) spam every time anyone joins the channel or just wasn't paying attention 2 seconds ago when someone else was told. Frankly, I wouldn't be shocked if the add-on spam actually decreased the general chat about it since the info is presented to everyone who wants it at once.

The only solution I see is to automatically put that info in player hands, there's really no reason it can't be done.

Regarding the grouping, I'm in that category of "refuses to group for rep farming" regardless of whether I'm in a queue or not. As you point out yourself, some of those fights (especially Kilnmasters, and Chanters to a degree) have pretty specific and tight timing in order to not die or to interrupt or to say out of range while still doing melee dps, when I'm soloing (and someone else doesn't drag a mob over to me during combat) I almost never have issues with the fights.

The few times I've grouped, though... it hasn't gone well. Having a tank control the fights is a non-starter, I need to have control or I'm a lot more likely to die. Having a dps with a pet tank (hunter, warlock) can be a nightmare, even worse than having a tank in some cases. When I'm the one controlling the fight, having other melee dps means I have to worry not just about keeping myself alive but also about not killing the other dps who are killing it, adding just that one variable makes it a lot more likely I'm going to fail and get someone killed, possibly me.

Screw that. Other people have cost me more than enough in repair bills since TI was released, I hit my limit weeks ago and now I just do my own thing. It's not the most efficient way for the player collective but I've determined that it is for me and unlike with griefers, my particular selfishness doesn't have any significant direct impact on anyone else, it just slows down the overall rep gain rate. Sorry about that.

We did our rep runs in a group of 4-5 mostly. All were guildies/friends or both. There is a fair amount of rep grouping on my server but I hate killing mobs for rep so I only did it with the hubby and guildies - 20 kill quest/maybe a few extra kills. As a tank with a healer in the party I was able to pull crazy amounts of stuff.

I'm exalted now and I never want to grind that on alts.

As for people pulling stuff over to you... so many times dps do that to me because I guess I'm obviously a tank. Apparently there is a presumption by some that because I am a tank, I'm obligated to tank everything for everyone. It gets old. And it's not the first time this expansion I've had that happen [oh the fatty goatsteak goats... I got screamed at more than once for not saving someone I didn't even see]

But most of the people who wanted the rep grind done are done, so the rep grouping has thinned out somewhat. Perhaps the ability to group cross-server for rep grinding would be advantageous? I know I see some people on OQueue looking for rep groups that way

I'd rethink your "solo-only" policy. I've never found any situation in which having group members made things harder. Best case scenario they do all the hard stuff for you, or trivialize it if they're a hunter, worst case they die you and do what you'd do anyway. Unless they pull extras, which seems to be a melee habit anyway, I cannot see how more players can possibly make things harder.

"my particular selfishness doesn't have any significant direct impact on anyone else, it just slows down the overall rep gain rate"So, yes, it does have an impact.

"Having a dps with a pet tank (hunter, warlock) can be a nightmare, even worse than having a tank in some cases."

Are you kidding?

Those are GODSENDS. Even when I had the Chi-ji buff and 560ish ilvl or something, I'd try to find a hunter or warlock to pet tank it -- they can simply stand in one place and eat the Kilnmaster strikes. Made things so much simpler and faster. Frankly, if anything I don't want a NORMAL tank because they have to dodge the Kilnmaster's attacks, which means the fire lines are going everywhere versus being in a consistent spot (on the pet taking 10% damage).